Bespoke Cutter And Tailor

Quote from: Amb0925 on June 07, 2025, 02:36:26 AMLooking through the handcraft tailor academy site, it looks like it will be a helpful resource. The blog and forum alone have a lot that interests me. I will definitely check out the vimeo courses. If I were to sell a kidney and purchase his online drafting course (or perhaps save my alterations money for a year or two), do you think it would be worth it? Or is there a more cost effective way to learn the same thing in a book or by less expensive video courses?

Rory's video courses on vimeo are all excellent. However, I didn't have much interest in the drafting side of things so didn't rent the module. Edit: I'm sure that he had a drafting course for trousers on vimeo, but it's not linked. Again, I can't search vimeo (it's disallowed in the UK and EU apparently), but possibly it's on there somewhere?

With the construction lessons, a basic draft is given at the start of each course. He has an old school approach to drafting, typical of British tailors, which relies on proportions. Very little in the way of explanation is given, as is common with drafting books. I don't find that approach intuitive, and it's not for me.

Whether the drafting module proper is like that too, I couldn't say. And this isn't a criticism, btw, some people are quite happy following that approach. Just as long as you realize that those drafts are just to get you up and running. The real work is in the fitting of the garment.

Some of the video channels I linked to have lessons on drafting. It's the same type of approach though.

Looking through the handcraft tailor academy site, it looks like it will be a helpful resource. The blog and forum alone have a lot that interests me. I will definitely check out the vimeo courses. If I were to sell a kidney and purchase his online drafting course (or perhaps save my alterations money for a year or two), do you think it would be worth it? Or is there a more cost effective way to learn the same thing in a book or by less expensive video courses?

For reasons that I can't fathom, vimeo is no longer searchable. So I can't find some of the episodes for Jo Bakers Water's course. If anyone has better luck, please post the missing page:

https://www.handcrafttailor.com/team-1

1-9
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/artisan44fullmasterclass

10-19
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/artisan44masterclass2/

20-30
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/artisan44masterclassdb3/

31-40

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/arrtisan44masterclassdb4

Edit: found and updated.

Thank you very much. I will check them all out. This forum has been a treasure trove so far.

A selection of some of the channels that I follow on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/@OFFICIALISOT

https://www.youtube.com/@BESPOKEEDUCATOR

https://www.youtube.com/@HORSSUJET/playlists

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YXERDnPniw&list=PLUOdN9OIUtl0qzjR337WBwPLYqy7Nh14J

https://www.youtube.com/@becomeatailor6204

https://www.youtube.com/@LeeMarshsavilerow/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@silviochan89/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@shirtologist9365

https://www.youtube.com/@Maldonado60

https://www.youtube.com/@caffeinatedtailor

Rory Duffy has some excellent videos on vimeo to rent, covering trouser, waistcoat and jacket making Savile Row style. Savile Row trained tailor Jo Baker Waters also has a very good course on vimeo to rent about jacket/coat making.

Hi everyone! I have posted a few times in the apprentice board with questions and have always been met with the most helpful advice. I was wondering if anyone could help me find resources or offer advice about how to get educated when I do not have the advantage of a tailor that I can learn from in-person. There are no real tailors in my area that I know of, a few seamstresses that I have been learning from that are retiring soon. I got into it because there is so little competition and I really do love to sew, mend, and alter. Even if there was a tailor near me, I couldn't really be an apprentice because I am a stay-at-home mom of 2 kids under 2 and can't spend that much time out of my home.

Here is how I've learned what I know so far:
-in high school, my grandma gave me her old sewing machine and showed me how to use it.
-I took one semester as a fashion major at baylor university (I loved my construction class, did very well, and was a straight-a student before dropping out) but really only got to learn the basics of sewing buttons, zippers, very basic pattern alterations and construction of a basic skirt and blouse from a provided pattern.
-I enjoy watching YouTube channels related to sewing, though I have been able to find only a few quality ones and none that get into tailoring, more just basic sew-your-own-clothes or fashion history
-any books I can find at the library or used bookstores, most of which are also for diy-ers and I usually skim to the specific skills I need in the moment. I have been looking through the book recs in this forum and will try to see if there are any in there that can be a sort of foundational textbook for me
-working under a woman who makes draperies, slipcovers, etc. mostly just cutting fabric with patterns that she has already made
-alterations for money on the side when I have time, people mostly just need pants hemmed but I have done a few slightly more complicated things too

I feel like I have a spotty knowledge of everything and I would love a more systematic approach to build a strong foundation. I'm not asking to become a master tailor overnight but I would like to have the basics down really well and have a way to grow in knowledge over time. I don't want to be "winging it" with a youtube video every time I get a new project. It would be great to learn to make my husband and I some nice clothes that fit well, maybe one day do some real tailoring. And Lots of tutorials and diy books tend to show the quick and easy way, and I am hoping to learn the right way. Sometimes when I try to learn via google it feels like I have to tap into a secret tailoring dark web to get the right info. I should add that I do not have thousands of dollars to spend on an online course unfortunately; if that is something that you all think is important then I may be able to save up and do that one day. My time is also very limited with the kids and lots of other projects my husband and I have going on; we keep pretty busy. Sewing is a priority though for me (after husband and kids) so I have been trying to allocate more time for it in scattered blocks throughout the day and at night when the kids are in bed.

In response to @Schneiderfrei's request, here are some photos of the two shirts I recently made following the Ciraci method (albeit with a few "customisations"). One is in popline and the other percale.

I did a little searching using google books. You are right Jim, in the 19th century it was common for tailors to make ready-to-wear, on a small scale. According to The Clothing Trade in Provincial England, 1800-1850 by Alison Toplis:

https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Clothing_Trade_in_Provincial_England/eeg5CgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=ready-made+houses+tailoring&pg=PA49&printsec=frontcover

The following report, Commercial Relations of the United States, from 1898, demonstrates two things. Firstly, that the UK was slower to catch on when it came to industrial-scale RTW, compared to the US and Canada. Secondly, that parallel with this burgeoning industry, and in direct response to it, MTM was also emerging as a force to be reckoned with. The following was simply cut and pasted, thanks to some of Google's nifty capture features, so hopefully there are no 'translation' errors:

In the States and Canada a sort of revolution in tailoring for men has been accomplished; in Great Britain it is in process of accomplishment. From small beginnings the making up of suits ready for wearing has progressed by leaps and bounds till it has reached formidable dimensions. And in aggravation of this there is another development in the same direction. Large wholesale tailoring houses distribute broadcast to drapers and others throughout the country bunches of cloth patterns representing stock at headquarters. Anyone wanting a suit can choose his pattern and have his measure taken by the local agent. The order is transmitted to the wholesale house which, having command of first rate cutters, organized labor and immense production, turns out a suit that for style and economy puts the town or village tailor hopelessly in the background.

This rise in RTW tallies with the emergence of the department stores; as well as businesses such as the aforementioned Austin Reed, who started up in the early 1900s and boasted that they provided a RTW suit on a par with a tailored one, in terms of quality (so clearly they employed skilled tailors). Mostly though, it was MTM that won the day.

Full text for the above report here:

https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Report_Upon_the_Commercial_Relations_of/pCNJAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=ready-made+houses+tailoring&pg=PA833&printsec=frontcover

Very interesting post Jim. I bow to your superior knowledge about the 19th century.

Quote from: Hendrick on June 05, 2025, 08:41:31 AMTechnically, from an industry standpoint, ready to wear is very different in it's conception than tailoring. In RTW a garment is "broken down" in a number of manipulations, whereby a worker (by machine or hand) only executes a single handling repetively. So a garment is assembled in series in a system called "progressive bundling". Obviously these workers are not tailors, usually mastering only handful of manipulations at best. Many of them never even assembled a whole garment, be it by lack of skill or pure loathe of the work.

I'm not sure that's always been the case.  Here's another quote from DeVere's ca. 1866 cutting book (emphasis added):

QuoteReady-made garments now take a very important place in the trade, and a work on Cutting could hardly be considered as complete, that did not give some indication of the patterns that are most generally useful for this purpose.  At the present time, most tailors always keep a certain number of ready-made garments in stock, which are useful for chance customers, or by a few alterations, will serve for executing very pressing orders, which it would not otherwise be possible to prepare in time.

And in a short section entitled "Hints on Selection of Stock, or the Purchase of Materials" he says:

QuoteAlways keep a fair assortment of light waterproof Tweed Overcoats ready made, so that they are always at hand, to introduce to customers on rainy days, or for the Races, &c, &c.  It is these little incidental things, that increase your trade above the average, and keep your customers from going to the ready-made houses.

It's clear that DeVere's system is intended primarily for what we would call the "bespoke trade" today.  In a section giving advice to new masters setting up their own establishments, he says:

QuoteGive the greatest possible attention to the cut of all garments, and spare no trouble to render the fit as perfect as possible, and to have all the details of the cut and making up, in accordance with the latest fashion.  Have a special pattern cut to suit each client, and do not trust to alterations made when trying on; they are troublesome to the customer, and give him a very mean idea of your talent; they are an expense to the master, a  trouble to the workman, and rarely produce a good result.

But he's advising that same new master to keep a stock of ready made raincoats on hand.  So this "ready made" isn't a lower quality intended for the lower classes, it's made by the same people, in the same shop, out of the same materials as their regular product.  As opposed to the presumably cheaper, lower-quality products of the "ready-made houses".

I can't speak for the 1920's since I haven't studied clothing of that period.  But I think it's a mistake to impose modern trade divisions on tailors of the 19th century, or to assume terminology was the same.  Clearly some "real tailors" made ready-made garments in addition to their regular product.